From Discovery to Invention: The Writing and Rewriting of Two Patents

Abstract

Research articles and patents are claim-making texts that work in different social arenas. They have in common a process of enrolment, by which diverse interests are incorporated textually to support a claim. But the evaluation of a patent draws on different assumptions about the nature of a claim, the relation to other texts and the account of future effects. One way to bring out these differences is to look at the experience of researchers who are used to writing research articles, as they learn to write their first patents. I follow the drafting of patents by a zoologist (applying in the US) and a medical researcher (applying in the UK). They revised their texts in response to the comments of their patent agents, the patent examiners, the potential sponsors, and in response to their own continuing laboratory experiments. In both cases, the crucial areas of debate were the scope of the claims, the relation to prior and competing texts and the story that linked discovery and a range of possible applications. In each case the researchers and their agents developed textual devices appropriate to the discourse of patents: nesting claims, constructing an ideal reader, doubling the story. Their strategies for translating interests between their laboratories, sponsors, the patent agencies, potential users and the wider public raise the question of how separate arenas of knowledge and ownership are defined.